Lessons
Class Introduction
15:31 2Photo Basics
06:08 3Camera Controls - Top Deck: Mode Dial Part 1
15:46 4Camera Controls- Top Deck: Mode Dial Part 2
13:00 5Top Deck: Custom Settings and Focus Mode
13:17 6Backside: Electronic Viewfinder
07:52 7Backside: AF/MF
05:24 8Backside: Function Button: Top Row
20:58Backside: Function Button: Bottom Row
08:08 10Backside: Control Wheel
10:12 11Left, Right, Bottom & Front Sides
09:58 12Sony Lenses
10:11 13Menu Overview
03:47 14Camera Settings 1: Pages 1-3
14:00 15Camera Settings 1: Pages 4-6
17:29 16Camera Settings 1: Pages 7-9
07:22 17Camera Settings 1: Pages 10-14
21:50 18Camera Settings 2: Pages 1-4
16:02 19Camera Settings 2: Pages 5-9
14:50 20Wireless Settings
06:24 21Application Menu
18:46 22Playback Menu
03:35 23Setup Menu
22:27 24Camera Operation
10:53Lesson Info
Photo Basics
For those of you who are new to photography, I'm just gonna go through about five minutes of some photo basics. If you already know about photography and you wanna jump ahead, feel free to jump ahead to the next section where we start getting into the controls of this camera. So this camera is a mirrorless camera unlike the SLRs, which have a mirror for viewing in them. The camera has interchangeable lenses. In all of the lenses is an aperture unit. It is one of the ways that we have of controlling how much light gets into the camera. So the aperture can be opened or closed depending on what the range is of that particular lens. Not all lenses will have this range, it varies from lens to lens. You can open up your aperture to let in more light. You can close it down to let in less light. When you do close or open the aperture, you are going to change the depth of field that you get with any particular lens. And so here at 1.4 we're getting very shallow depth of field and those red hash...
marks over there on the right side are growing as we stop down our aperture. So we're getting more and more depth of field the smaller our aperture gets. And so which one is best? Well, it all depends on the type of photo that you wanna shoot. Having the range is what's great about photography is that you can shoot a wide range of photos. So once light goes through the lens, it's gonna go in to the image sensor on the camera. Now, with a mirrorless camera, the sensor is exposed to the light, and that information goes back to the LCD on the back of the camera. As well as going up the the EVF. Not all cameras have EVFs, but I think the better quality ones do. And this is an electronic viewfinder, so that you can see what's going on on the sensor. You get to see whether your exposure is too bright or too dark. You get to see whether you have the right white balance. You get to see if you have the lens cap on the camera. So there's a lot of good benefits being able to see an EVF like that. Now, the sensor itself has to be exposed to light so it can show you in the viewfinder what's going on. When it comes time to take a photo, the standard setup for something like this is the first shutter curtain has to close so that the sensor can prepare to collect light during the actual shutter speed. And so then we have our exposure, right here. That's our picture, and then the second curtain comes in and blocks it off, that way each pixel is exposed to light for the exact same amount of time, and then the second curtain has to open again, so that you can see what's going on through the viewfinder again. And so that's what happens every time you take a photo. Now there is a slight exception and I will talk about that later on in this class. Now the shutter speeds are the second way we have of controlling how much light comes into the camera. And so they're good for letting in more or less light, but they're also good for stopping the motion of subjects that are moving around. And there's a wide variety of different shutter speeds that you would use to have different effects. And so that's kind of the basics of how the mirrorless camera works. Now, one of the bid factors in any camera is the size of the image sensor in the camera itself. And that is gonna be a big determination of what type of lenses you can use on the camera, how good a quality of images you're gonna get, how good the camera does under low light, And this uses what I would consider a medium size sensor. I would consider it the most popular sensor among hobbyist and enthusiast type photographers out there. There are bigger ones, there are smaller ones. The one size larger is based off the 35 millimeter film, which is quite popular with very serious photographers, professional photographers. And that's known as a full frame sensor. This is known as an APS-C sensor, and it has a crop factor of 1.5. So it's smaller than the full frame sensor by a factor of 1.5, and that'll come into play when you are choosing lenses. Because there are full frame lenses and there are APSC lenses that you can get for this camera. And I'll talk more about that when we get to the section on lenses. If you're gonna be using the traditional neck strap on this, it's going to come with a little strap adjuster. One of the tips on this is using that tail to go on the underneath side, it keeps pressure down on it and it's unlikely to slip or fall out. So I've seen a number of people who just don't have the strap on there right. For some people, attaching the strap is the most complicated part about owning a camera. So make sure you get that down right, you don't wanna drop it on the ground. As far as holding the camera, put the camera in your right hand, grip it like most anyone normally would. The question is what are you doing with you left hand? Is the thumb on the top of the lens, or is it on the bottom of the lens? You kind of want it on the top of the lens, that way it gets your elbow into a more stable position closer to your torso so that you can hold the camera more steady to get better images with low light and with slower shutter speeds. Now throughout this class we're gonna be talking about a lot of different features, and they're gonna have the options of being set in automatic or manual. So I'm going to be talking a lot about how to set them up manually. And so if you can understand what you're doing manually, you can pick and choose when you want to put them in the auto mode. And it's gonna kind of come down to how much time and how much effort you want to put out, and how much knowledge you have of those areas. And so the more knowledge you have in those areas, the more opportunities you're gonna have to be able to choose to go manual if you wanna get very consistent results. I have no problem with auto. Auto does a good job. It's very quick, and it's easy. But sometimes it's not consistent and we all wanna get the photos that we want and so whatever works, works. And so, if you can know both systems, better for you. All right, so that's a few of the basics. If you wanna know more about photography in general. Not just specifically the Sony A6500. As I say, I have a short class and I have a long class. One of those is probably gonna be good for you if you want to learn all the general knowledge on photography.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Nichola Johnson
GREAT CLASS. I HAVE JUST ENTERED THE 'MANUAL' CAMERA MODE AND ACQUIRED THE SONY A6500...THIS CLASS TOTALLY HELPED WITH THE CAMERA BASICS. I WILL DEFINITELY TAKE MORE. JOHN GREENGO IS FABULOUS. CLEAR AND EASY TO FOLLOW.
Lee Kneisz
I bought the a6000 course a while back and when I upgraded to the a6500 this was a no-brainer. I love how comprehensive the coverage is and it was a great refresher on previous features. If you're a newbie to the Sony a6500 this is a must!
a Creativelive Student
I've owned the A6000 since it came out and still learned a TON from John's A6500 class. I will definitely be getting his original A6000 class. I'm SO glad he's doing Sony cameras now. Thanks John G. - You are a truly great teacher!
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